While original equipment manufacturers have the opportunity to select a specific windshield wiper superstructure to cooperate with a preselected wiper arm style, those providing replacement wipers must be able to accomodate a large variety of wiper arm styles and accordingly, adaptors or connectors have been developed for this purpose. Three arm styles known as the bayonet, shepherd's crook and side pin, are very popular but few adaptors have been developed which will accomodate all three styles.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,057,869 shows a connector adapted to cooperate with both the bayonet style arm and the shepherd's crook style arm. The connector body of the structure illustrated in said patent is coupled to the primary yoke of a windshield wiper by means of side panels which straddle the yoke and are secured by a through pin. There exists in the marketplace a modification of this structure wherein the side panels are apertured so as to straddle outwardly extending trunnions provided on the yoke and receive the pin of a side mounted wiper arm. The pin, in this case, is retained in the yoke by a leaf spring assembled within the structure.
An object of this invention is to simplify this structure so as to avoid the requirement to provide a leaf spring with which to engage and secure a side pin style of wiper arm and yet be able to continue to accommodate the aforementioned other arm styles.
An important advantage which flows from the development of this invention is an easy assembly procedure readily adapted for mass production assembly lines.
Another object of the invention is to provide a simpler structure for the adaptor requiring no special retention means to hold the shepherd's crook style of wiper arm in its operative position.